


Gone Mental

by whichclothes



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-23
Updated: 2010-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichclothes/pseuds/whichclothes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-NFA. Spike ends up in a mental hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by one of [](http://sueworld2003.livejournal.com/profile)[**sueworld2003**](http://sueworld2003.livejournal.com/)'s beautiful manips. She's graciously allowed me to include it with the story. The story's in two parts; I'll post the second installment tomorrow. I've taken a few liberties with actual mental hospital procedures because, hey, it's fiction. Feedback is adored and brings good karma.

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |  [gonemental](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/gonemental)  
---|---  
  
_**Gone Mental, Part One**_  
**Title:** Gone Mental, Part 1 of 2   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** PG-13   
**Disclaimer:** Obviously, I'm not Joss Whedon   
**Summary:** Post-NFA. Spike ends up in a mental hospital.   
**Warnings:** Angst, a little language, Spike in restraints   
**Author's Note:** This fic was inspired by one of [](http://sueworld2003.livejournal.com/profile)[**sueworld2003**](http://sueworld2003.livejournal.com/)'s beautiful manips. She's graciously allowed me to include it with the story. The story's in two parts; I'll post the second installment tomorrow. I've taken a few liberties with actual mental hospital procedures because, hey, it's fiction. Feedback is adored and brings good karma.

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0000e6a2/)  
---  
  
            “We got a good one yesterday.”

“Yeah? Not another prophet, I hope, because we already have two Jesuses and a Mohammed, and last week—“

“Nope, not a prophet.”

“Ooh! Is this one talking to aliens?”

“Nope. Even better.”

“Uh…secret government agent?”

Hernandez shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

“Okay. I give up.”

“Vampire.” Hernandez’s lip quirked.

“Vampire?”

“Yep.” Hernandez took a big gulp of the crappy coffee.

“Like… Dracula?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Does he talk like Bela Lugosi? ‘I vant to suck your blooood!’”

“No, this guy’s more like Billy Idol, actually. Someone found him half-dead in an alley. He’d been jumped pretty good, I guess, all cut up and shit. And when he came to, he got all hysterical over the window in his room ‘cause he thought the sun was gonna burn him up. Claims he’s 150 years old.”

“Really?”

“Oh, and it gets better. He’s a _good_ vampire.”

“A good vampire?”

“Yeah. He has a soul. And he got beat up helping another good vampire battle evil lawyers.” Hernandez’s smirk transformed into a white-toothed grin.

“Yeah, well…evil lawyers. I can see that.”

Hernandez stood and tossed his cup into the trash. “You can see the vampire. He’s all yours, Harris.”

Xander took a last sip of his coffee and stood too. “Great. Hope he doesn’t bite.”

 

He didn’t look much like a vampire.

Instead of black and all slicked back, his hair was peroxide blond and standing up around his head in a riot of curls. And instead of dark, hypnotic pools, his eyes were ice blue and unfocused. Xander wondered what chemical cocktail they had running though this one’s veins. Instead of a cape, this guy was wearing a floral hospital johnny and four-point restraints.

He was pale, though. Really unusually pale.

He hadn’t noticed Xander enter the room. From the doped-up look of him, he wouldn’t have noticed a herd of elephants enter the room.

“Hey,” Xander said.

With obvious effort, the man rolled his gaze unsteadily toward Xander and then blinked several times. The haze in his eyes cleared a little.

“You!” the man croaked.

“Me.” Xander smiled calmly at him.

“What are _you_ doing here?”

“Lunch,” Xander replied, lifting the tray in his hands a little higher. “And a few other details.”

“Is the Slayer here?”

Oookay. “No, there are no slayers here. You’re safe. This is a slayer-free zone.”

The man just gaped at him, so Xander pulled the little wheeled table next to the bed, then he sat in the chair beside it. He filled the spoon with the mush o’ the day and held it near the man’s face.

“Hungry?” he asked.

The man set his jaw and looked away.

“If I were you, I’d eat. If you don’t, they’re likely to put a feeding tube in you, and I can assure you that’s no fun at all.”

The man glared at him, but opened his mouth. Nope, no fangs in there. Xander popped the spoon in.

The patient spit the food out. “Tastes like shite!” he said.

“Yeah,” said Xander, using a napkin to wipe the man’s face. “Once they get your meds stabilized you can start earning privileges, and then you can eat in the dining hall. Food there’s much better.”

The man glared some more but parted his lips for the spoon, and this time he swallowed obediently.

“So, what do you like to be called?”

“You know my name, whelp.”

Whelp? That was a new one. And Xander really didn’t know the guy’s name. He’d looked over the paperwork, but they’d admitted him as a John Doe. He didn’t have any ID on him when they found him, and they hadn’t found a match with his prints. Nobody had come to claim him, either. Maybe all his people were back in England.

Xander scooped up another spoonful of goo. “Why don’t you humor me, then, okay? What should I call you?”

The patient glared some more, but then he said, “Spike.”

“Nice to meet you, Spike. I’m Xander.”

“What are you playing at, Harris?”

Xander put down the spoon and empty bowl. “Just doing my job. Want some Jello to wash that down with?”

Spike shook his head.

Xander pointed to the cups on the tray. “OJ or H2O? Or both, ‘cause it’s bonus day today.”

“Water.”

Xander held the paper cup so that Spike could reach the straw. The man quickly drank it all down.

“You seem pretty thirsty, Spike. Want the OJ, too?”

Spike nodded and Xander held that cup for him, too. When he was finished, Xander stood and pushed the table away.

“Okay, my good man. What goes in, must come out. Ready for a bedpan?”

Spike practically growled at him.

“Hey, not my favorite job either. Soon you’ll get these restrains off and then the facilities are all yours. But until then….” He lifted the metal container from its shelf near the bed.

Spike looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to yell or cry, but finally he just nodded once. Then he looked away as Xander lifted the sheet off of him. Xander tapped Spike’s hip lightly with one finger and Spike awkwardly raised his midsection so that Xander could slip the pan under him. A moment later, the sound of urine hitting metal filled the room.

“Done?”

Another curt nod, and Xander pulled the pan out and covered the patient back up. He emptied the pan into the toilet and set it aside.

When he turned back, Spike was looking him, and it definitely looked like there were tears in his eyes.

“Please,” he whispered, like it pained him to say the word. “What’s happening?”

Xander’s heart broke a little at the expression on the man’s face. He couldn’t imagine how awful it would feel to be tied to a bed, confused about who and where you are, not even being able to take a piss by yourself.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” he said softly. “This is Coleman State Hospital. The doctors here are really good, and we’re going to take good care of you. Pretty soon you’ll be feeling better, okay? Then you’ll be able to get up and move around.”

Spike swallowed thickly. “’M not crazy.”

Xander patted his shoulder gently. “I’m sorry. It’s kind of scary, I know. You’ll feel better soon.” He hoped this was true, now that he’d said it twice. Some patients got the right mixture of meds and other treatments and they bounced out pretty quickly. Others, well…they didn’t.

Spike looked away again.

Xander went to the sink and filled a clean basin with warm water. He brought the basin over to the bed, along with some soap and a couple towels.

“Spike? I’m going to give you a quick bath, okay?”

Spike’s head whipped back toward him at this.

“Can’t wait to get your hands on me, Harris?”

Great. Xander loved the ones who imagined he was going to molest them. But he just grinned. “Yeah, well, you’re lucky. My hands are nice and warm today.”

He began with Spike’s face, washing carefully around his mouth and eyes and ears. As he did this, he saw that the man’s eyes had gone unfocused again. Then he wiped the surprisingly delicate neck.

Next came the tricky part.

He pulled back the sheet again and then reached around Spike’s neck to undo the gown’s ties. He lifted the gown off, leaving the man completely bare except for his bindings. Xander was careful to keep his face neutral, but inwardly he winced at the scars on the chest and belly and legs. They were still red and angry-looking. It looked like something had tried to claw the guy apart, and Xander tried not to think about what would do that kind of damage to someone, and why.

Working quickly, Xander did his best to cleanse as much of the patient’s skin as the straps allowed. Spike didn’t respond at all, even when Xander got to his groin. He simply stared at a point somewhere on the ceiling.

When Xander was done, he tied a fresh johnny around Spike’s neck and covered him again with the sheet.

“Spike? I’m going to take care of some other things. I’ll be back in about an hour or so, okay?” The patient gave no sign that he heard.

Xander gathered the soiled linens and the bedpan and left.

It was nearly thirty minutes later and he was wheeling an elderly man to the common room when the thought suddenly struck him.

How the hell did Spike know his last name?

 

For the next week, Spike was too drugged up to do more than garble a few unintelligible words. Xander talked to him anyway while he cared for him. He never knew whether anything he said actually made any sense to patients in this state, but he supposed it didn’t hurt, anyway. So he chattered on about football and last month’s trip to Las Vegas and his best friend, Willow, who had just announced her engagement to a musician, much to her parents’ dismay.

Spike just lay there, drooling a little, sometimes tugging weakly at the restraints.

When Xander returned from a three-day weekend, though, things were looking a little better. Spike was sitting in a chair, gazing out the window. He was wearing a straitjacket and a pair of striped pajama pants. Xander frowned slightly to see the poor guy still in restraints, but at least he could get up and walk around a little.

His head turned when Xander entered the room, and his eyes were bright and clear.

“Harris.”

“Hi, Spike. Doing better today, huh?”

Spike just looked at him.

“I’m afraid lunch is mush again, but now that you’re up and around, I can get you something better for dinner, okay?”

Xander pulled a chair and the rolling table next to the patient and fed him. Spike swallowed each mouthful, his piercing gaze never leaving Xander’s face. It made Xander a little nervous, actually.

When Spike was finished eating, Xander accompanied him to the tiny bathroom. He unbuckled the crotch straps and slid the pajamas down so Spike could use the toilet. He had to sit, since his hands were still bound, but it was at least a little more dignified than the bedpan.

Xander dressed him again and refastened the straitjacket.

Spike returned to his chair.

“Anything else I can do for you, Spike?”

“Get me out of here.”

“Sorry. I can’t.”

Spike’s jaw worked. “You really don’t know me, do you?”

Xander sat down again. “No. But I’ve got a little time, if you want to talk.”

Technically, this wasn’t part of his job. But it was his job to make sure the patients were as comfortable and safe as possible, and he figured sometimes a willing ear was what they needed most.

Right now, Spike looked lost. “How…how do I get out of this bloody place?”

“You’ll have to talk to your doctor about that.”

Spike looked down at his lap. “I know you.”

“Sure, Spike. I’ve been in here practically every day for over a week.”

“No. I mean I know you. Xander Harris.” Spike’s voice was quiet and desperate. “Buffy’s friend.”

All the breath left Xander’s lungs at once and he felt a little dizzy. Calm down, he told himself. Maybe they really had met, once. Buffy’d probably dated him or something. Although…Xander thought he would have remembered this guy.

“Buffy? How do you…how do you know Buffy?” His voice did not squeak a little.

But he almost jumped when Spike laughed. It was not a happy laugh. “How do I know her? Burned for her, didn’t I?”

Xander didn’t know how to respond to this. Finally he shook his head. “Look, I haven’t seen Buffy in years, okay? But if you two are…close…I could probably get hold of her. Let her know you’re here.”

Spike shook his head. “No. Don’t want to see the Slayer.”

The Slayer again. What—or who—was that supposed to be?

“Is there someone else we can contact for you? Friends? Maybe you have family back in England?”

Spike laughed again. “Family’s dead, mate. Been dead a long time.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Spike frowned at him. “Maybe…. Maybe you could tell the Watcher I’m here.”

The Watcher? Was that the same as the Slayer? “Who’s that, Spike?”

“Rupert. Rupert Giles.”

Xander pulled a pad of paper and pencil out of his pocket. “Okay, Rupert…um, how do you spell the last name?”

“How would I bloody know? He’s your Watcher.”

Okay. “Spike, I don’t know anybody by that name.”

Spike narrowed his eyes. “He was the bleeding librarian at Sunnydale High!”

Xander was surprised again—Spike knew where he went to school. Well, maybe he knew Buffy then. He definitely looked a few years too old to have gone to school with them, but Buffy always did like to date older men. “The librarian at Sunnydale High was Mrs. Delmonico. She had blue hair and she always wore those glasses on a chain.”

Spike looked at him for a long minute, and then squeezed his eyes shut. Xander was nearly rocked back in his chair by the almost tangible wave of despair that poured off the man. Then Spike turned his face back to the window, and didn’t say another word.

 

Spike was not one of the patients who bounced right out.

Sometimes he’d be lucid for weeks, but then he’d relapse, going on about demons and prophecies and bloodsucking and something called the powers that be. A few times he had screaming fits, punching walls and kicking furniture. Then he’d spend days back in restraints, or so doped-up he couldn’t even speak.

It devastated Xander, because Spike was young and when he wasn’t raving he was smart and funny and interesting. And—let’s be honest—really damned sexy and Xander so wasn’t going to go there because lusting after a patient was just. Not. Okay.

But no matter how much he swore at himself and warned himself to get his shit together, he couldn’t stop himself from being drawn to Spike.

On his better days, Spike charmed the nurses and beat the other patients at cards and snarked amusingly at the television. Even on his bad days, the days when he was strapped down and Xander had to inflict the bedpan on him again, he’d tell riveting stories about vampires and apocalypses and getting into glorious fights. He seemed to know a lot about history, too. Either he was a good faker—and he might be, because Xander’s own grasp of history was pretty tenuous—or he had studied for a long time.

So a tiny little part of Xander—a mean, nasty, selfish part, which Xander didn’t even want to acknowledge—was pleased that Spike was still there. But most of him was sad, and even more sad when not a single person ever materialized to visit him or even send him a letter.

Several months after Spike was committed, Willow called. After listening to her go on for forty-five minutes about her fiancé, and about his band, and about the wedding they were planning, Xander finally got in a few words of his own. He mentioned Spike. Willow said she didn’t remember anybody like that, but she said she’d ask Buffy. They were still in touch. But then, they hadn’t dated and then had a really miserable breakup, had they?

Willow called again a few days later to tell him that her fiancé was about to sign a recording deal and they’d decided on a venue for the reception and her thesis advisor was being a prick and oh yeah, she’d talked to Buffy, who never met a British guy named Spike.

Of course, Xander didn’t share this conversation with the patient.

 

Nearly a year after he’d been admitted, and Spike was strapped back in bed again. This time he’d somehow found a sliver of glass and he’d tried to slit his wrists. Fortunately, he’d been caught before he lost too much blood.

Xander took away the bedpan and started gently wiping Spike’s face. Spike blinked up at him, trying to get past the grogginess from the drugs.

“Xan?”

Xander smiled at him. Nobody else called him that except Willow. Hernandez had muttered once that it wasn’t right, but Xander liked it. He figured he was as close as the poor guy had to a friend.

“Yeah, Spike?”

“’M never gonna get out of here, am I?”

His words were slightly slurred, but the emotion on his face was raw and intense.

Xander bent over him to untie his gown. “Don’t think like that. You’ll get better.”

Spike made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Can’t. Can’t get better because I’m not mad. I’m…oh, fuck, Xander.”

Now he was crying for real, and Xander wanted nothing more than to unbuckle the restraints and take him in his arms and comfort him. Instead, though, he bathed him. Quickly. Professionally. Clinically. Noting the scars, still vivid against the pale skin. Then he draped a clean johnny over him and fastened it as tenderly as he could. He pulled the scratchy white sheet up to Spike’s neck and patted his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.” And it was cheap consolation, but all that he could give.

Spike looked away, his eyes still glossy with tears, and sighed.

Xander was about to leave when Spike whispered his name again.

“Xan?”

Xander returned to his side.

“Yeah?”

“Gonna tell you some things about you. Some of them might be true, yeah? Probably not all, because…. Fuck. Please? Just listen?”

Xander sat down. He could listen.

“You…you grew up in Sunnydale. Which was an odd little town. And you were friends with Buffy Summers and the witch…Willow. And you were going to marry a girl named Anya, but you got cold feet. You…ah, you lost your virginity to a bint named Faith.”

Xander gasped at that.

But Spike was still talking.

“You used to wear horrible clothing. Loud colors and baggy trousers.” Xander groaned inwardly. Spike was right. Not that he was a fashion plate now—he mainly stuck to jeans and tees when he wasn’t wearing scrubs—but at least the Hawaiian shirts were long gone.

“Your parents were horrible as well. Drunks. You lived in their dingy basement and you could hear them stomping and yelling upstairs and you were just relieved they weren’t knocking you around anymore.”

Xander jumped up so quickly he nearly tipped over his chair.

“How---how the hell---??”

Spike looked at him, his eyes wide and desperate.

“Please, Xander. Please believe me. I’m not insane.”

Xander couldn’t listen to this anymore, or he’d be the one strapped down and Thorazined up.  
 

He turned and marched out the door.

 

[Part 2](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/18570.html#cutid1)

 


	2. Gone Mental, Part 2 of 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-NFA. Spike ends up in a mental hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was inspired by one of [](http://sueworld2003.livejournal.com/profile)[**sueworld2003**](http://sueworld2003.livejournal.com/)'s beautiful manips. She's graciously allowed me to include it with the story. I've taken a few liberties with actual mental hospital procedures because, hey, it's fiction. Feedback is adored and brings good karma.

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |  [gonemental](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/gonemental)  
---|---  
  
_**Gone Mental, Part Two**_  
**Title:** Gone Mental, Part 2 of 2   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander   
**Rating:** PG-13   
**Disclaimer:** Obviously, I'm not Joss Whedon   
**Summary:** Post-NFA. Spike ends up in a mental hospital.   
**Warnings:** Angst, a little language, Spike in restraints   
**Author's Note:** This fic was inspired by one of [](http://sueworld2003.livejournal.com/profile)[**sueworld2003**](http://sueworld2003.livejournal.com/)'s beautiful manips. She's graciously allowed me to include it with the story. I've taken a few liberties with actual mental hospital procedures because, hey, it's fiction. Feedback is adored and brings good karma.

Here's the second half of the story. I hope you enjoy!

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/0000e6a2/)  
---  
  
        The Spotlight was dingy and smelled like spilled beer. Few of the customers seemed to sport a full set of teeth. But it was just down the street from Xander’s crappy apartment, which meant it was the perfect place to be that night.

Xander downed the last swallow of his fifth Coors and waved the bartender for a sixth. He didn’t feel drunk, though. Not even buzzed. He just felt…numb. Shocky.

It was pretty much common knowledge among family and friends that his parents drank like fishes. Kinda hard to hide that when they both showed up wasted for parent-teacher conferences. When they showed up at all.

But Xander never told a soul about the abuse. For years he’d successfully hidden most bruises, and passed the rest off as his own clumsiness. And nobody ever doubted him, because he was kind of a spaz. Even Willow never suspected.

So how did Spike know?

And, while some of what he’d said was crazy—he’d never met anyone named Anya, never been engaged to anyone, and Sunnydale was the most normal, boring town he could imagine—the rest was dead-on.

Nobody knew about that girl named Faith except him, Buffy, and Willow. She’d been travelling through, picked Xander up at The Bronze, and took him back to her cheap motel where she fucked him silly. He’d been honest enough—or maybe stupid enough—to tell Buffy, and that’s why they broke up. They’d only been dating a short time, and they were doomed anyway, once Xander admitted to himself that he’d rather play for the other team, but he’d regretted ruining their friendship.

Xander drained his glass again and stared into the remaining suds as if they could give him an answer.

Who the hell was Spike?

 

Spike was out of bed the next day, but back in the straitjacket. He was looking out the window again. The view was nothing but treetops, but for someone who’d been locked up for twelve months, treetops were the closest thing to freedom.

He turned when Xander entered the room, and there was a tiny glint of something like hope in his shadowed eyes.

Xander didn’t say anything. He sat in the other chair and fed Spike bites of chicken and rice. Spike ate the Jello, too.

Then Xander helped him to the bathroom and afterward they sat back in the chairs. Spike looked frail, his skin translucent. The bleached parts of his hair had grown out and been cut away, and what remained was his natural light brown. Xander wanted to reach out and trace those dagger-sharp cheekbones with his thumb. He sat on his hands instead.

Finally, Xander took a deep breath. “Tell me. How do you know those things? About my parents? About…. How?”

Spike looked at him a long time. “Will you listen, then? And not tell me I’m barmy?”

“I’ll listen.”

Spike closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them.

“I am—I _was_ a vampire. Was born human 150 years ago and turned into a vamp in 1880. Spent decades killing. Then I travelled to a town called Sunnydale. There was a vampire slayer there, a girl named Buffy Summers. She had friends called Xander and Willow, and a Watcher. I had a nasty run-in with soldiers, couldn’t hurt humans anymore. Lived in your awful basement with you for a while.” Xander startled at that.

“And…I fell in love with the Slayer, which was a fool thing for a vampire to do, but I always was a fool over love. Then…oh, I did some bad things. But I earned my soul, for the girl, for Buffy. And I fought at her side when a truly evil being wanted to end the world. I _died _at her side, Xander, the final death, nothing but ashes.”

Spike paused then and took a few deep breaths. Xander just let him continue. He’d promised.

“Then…I was resurrected. In Los Angeles, of all places, in my grandsire’s office.”

“Grandsire?” Xander didn’t want to interrupt, but he didn’t understand.

“The vampire who made the vampire who made me. He—he had a soul, as well. And he was trying to fight evil, too, in his own way. I helped a little, for a while. Never did get along with the pouf, but didn’t have anywhere else to be. And when the grand battle came, I was there again, wasn’t I?

“There was a prophecy that a vampire with a soul, a Champion, would get to become a real boy someday. But that’s not why I fought. Never really believed in that mumbo-jumbo.

“And there was an army of demons, and some of them bit me or clawed me or…I don’t know. When I woke up, I was in hospital. Alive. And now I am human, it seems, and everything is like it was before, but not. Like you.”

Spike leaned back against his chair, looking exhausted. As if this had been a battle, too. He continued to meet Xander’s eyes, but it seemed to Xander that the other man was already poised to flinch away, to collapse back into himself. To give up.

“What do you think happened, Spike?” His voice was steady.

Spike’s gaze sharpened. “I think the prophecy was true. But those wankers couldn’t just leave me be, so they…moved me. To an…alternate universe, like. Don’t they have those in that science fiction rot you watch?”

Very few people knew about that little quirk, either.

“So in your universe, Spike, we’re friends?”

Spike laughed. “Couldn’t stand each other.”

“But…you said…the basement.”

“Yeah, I was a trifle desperate. And your friends put you up to it, and you always were a white hat. A couple years after—not long before I died—I stayed with you again, in your own flat, that time.”

Xander looked down at this hands. He liked his hands. They were strong, capable. His best feature, really. Now they were worrying each other in his lap.

The thing was, Xander had been around crazy people for a couple of years now. Much longer, if you counted his family. Hell, he knew more crazy people than sane ones. So he was pretty familiar with psychosis. And although Spike’s story was, well, really strange, it did have internal consistency. It made sense, if you bought the wild implausibility of vampires and demons really existing.

And Spike…didn’t seem nuts at all.

Other than believing himself to be a former vampire from another dimension.

Xander groaned and sank his head into his hands.

After several minutes of silence, he looked up to discover Spike still watching him.

“I…I don’t know what to say, Spike.”

“Don’t have to say anything. You listened and didn’t go running for more bloody injections for me. That’s all I asked for.”

“Will you give me some time to think about this?”

“Sure, Xan. Got loads of time, haven’t I?”

 

Spike was sitting in the tiny courtyard, basking in a pool of watery winter sunlight. He’d finally earned the right to go outside, but not yet to wear street clothes. He was wearing pajamas and an ugly green jacket. Xander sighed to himself. What kind of life is it when it’s a big deal to sit in a weedy little square, surrounded by scaly stucco walls?

“Hi, Xan.” Spike smiled at him. “Nice holiday?”

Xander had been gone the last week for Willow’s wedding. He’d been glad to see her so happy—radiant, really—but all the tuxedo-wearing and hand-shaking was grating. Not to mention the three thousand times some well-meaning biddy had asked him, “And when will it be _your_ turn, dear?” and he’d had to almost physically restrain himself from throttling them and explaining that it would never be his turn because he’s a goddamn fag, okay?

Xander plopped himself on the bench next to Spike. “I hate weddings,” he said.

Spike patted his knee. “Poor boy. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, is that it?”

“Something like that.”

They said nothing for a while. Spike squinted up at the pale blue sky as some honking geese flew by.

“Spike?”

“Hmm?”

“What would you do if you could walk out of here today?”

Spike looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. “You mean, would I bite people?”

“No, that wasn’t…. I mean, with your life. What would you do with it?”

“Wouldn’t spend forty hours a week locking myself up with a bunch of loonies.”

“Ah, it’s not so bad. Gotta pay the bills somehow. Beats delivering pizza.”

“You never had a job you liked?”

“I like this one, Spike. But yeah, for a while I was in construction. It’s like…you start with nothing, just an empty space, and then with your own hands you make somebody a home. It’s cool.”

“But?”

Xander shrugged. “Hurt my back. No more hauling lumber for me. But what about you?”

“I dunno. Might travel, some. I’ve seen a good bit of the world, but your perspective tends to be limited when you’re a vampire.”

“Sure. The whole nighttime-only thing.”

“Yeah. And I was mostly looking for things to kill, then. Wasn’t too interested in the scenery.”

“But now?”

Spike shook his head. “Haven’t killed humans in years. First the chip, then the soul…and now I’m human, too. Hardly remember what it feels like, to live. I’d like to give it a try.”

A cloud passed over the sun and Spike shivered. “Doesn’t matter,” he murmured.

Xander bit his lip. “What do you mean?”

“’M never getting out of here.”

Xander’s heart ached. “You will. You just…keep a lid on the vampire stuff, you know? Pretend you’re…normal.” He couldn’t believe he was advising a patient to fake sanity.

Spike patted his knee again. “Sure, pet,” he said. “I can do that.”

Since when did the patients comfort him?

 

Things had been going well for a while. Spike had stayed out of restraints, had even worked his way up to real clothes. If he kept it up, he might be allowed on an outing, might eventually work his way into an outpatient program.

Spike was wearing jeans and a red t-shirt, sitting on a couch in the common room and reading a book. Louis L’Amour. The library pickings were slim.

Xander plopped down next to him and sighed.

“Problems, pet?”

“Yeah, got dumped. Again.”

“That was fast.”

“We’d only gone out four—no, five—times. I liked this one, though.”

“So what happened?”

“This one wasn’t ready for monogamy. And me, I’m tired of playing around, you know?”

“Why? You’re only, what, twenty-four?”

“Twenty-five. And that’s not it. I’m just…not really close to anyone, you know? Except Willow, and she’s in Denver and busy with her own life. I had another good friend once—Jesse—but he got killed in a car accident during sophomore year.”

Xander didn’t usually talk about his personal life with patients. Hell, he didn’t usually talk about his personal life with anyone. But Spike was a good listener and somehow just seemed to draw confidences out of him. Maybe it was because Spike trusted him not to dismiss his vampire stories.

“Spike, your Xander…well, the one you knew. Was he gay, by any chance?”

The patient snorted. “Not that he admitted to me, anyway. Now, Red, though….”

“Red?”

“Willow.”

“Willow’s gay?”

“Not yours, I take it?”

“No. Just got married, remember? To a guy. Although…she did go through an experimental phase in college.”

“These labels are pretty limiting, pet. Vampires, we’re—they’re not that particular, you see? I always thought it was more about the person you wanted to be with, not what equipment they’ve got under the bonnet.”

Xander was relieved. He hadn’t really come out to Spike before. Then he thought about what Spike just said. Did that mean…? He shouldn’t ask this, but couldn’t help himself.

“What about you, Spike?”

Spike smirked at him, as if he knew exactly what Xander was thinking. “I was with a bird for a hundred years. My sire, Drusilla. But early on, and, occasionally, after Dru left, my tastes were…catholic.”

“Uh…nuns?”

Spike laughed loudly, a wonderful sound. “No, that was more Angel’s thing. I meant catholic as in broad or comprehensive.”

Oh. Xander stuck this bit of information away in a file labeled “You Have No Business Going Here, Moron.”

“Xan?”

“Yeah?”

“These drugs they’re giving me. They, erm, reduce the libido, yeah?”

Xander sighed. “Yeah. It keeps things a little quieter around here, I guess.”

“Hard to accept I’m never going to get my end away again.”

“Just keep up the sanity, Spike.”

“You, too, mate.”

 

It was a shitty couple of days off.

It poured rain and Xander’s apartment sprung a leak, and that meant he had to deal with his asshole landlord, who implied that the leak was somehow Xander’s fault. The hideous but comfortable couch he’d bought secondhand got all soggy.

But all of that drama was almost welcome because it distracted Xander, who couldn’t stop thinking about Spike. And they weren’t platonic, professional thoughts, either.

Damnit. This job and his sort-of friendship with Spike were all he really had going for him. He didn’t want to fuck them up.

A case of Miller didn’t help one bit.

When he arrived at work on Wednesday, Hernandez poured him a cup of coffee.

“You missed all the excitement around here.”

“Oh?”

“The vampire flipped out. Tried to kill McConnell.”

Xander’s stomach dropped to his feet.

“Shit,” he croaked.

“Uh-huh. Dr. Tarduno is getting a court order for a lobotomy.”

Xander sat down on the nearest chair. Hard.

“A lobot—fuck, Hernandez. They don’t do those anymore.” His voice broke a little, but the other man didn’t seem to notice. He sat in the other chair and sipped his coffee.

“Not very often, man. But now and then, when the meds don’t work, and the patient is violent. Not like they can keep him in restraints forever, you know?”

Xander didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything.

“Anyway, he’s tied up for now, and you get babysitting duty. Have fun, Harris.”

Hernandez took a last gulp of his drink and left. It took Xander nearly ten minutes before he trusted his legs again.

McConnell was a prick, no two ways about it. He had a cruel streak, and Xander tried not to work the same shifts as him if he could avoid it. But what happened? Had Spike tried to drink his blood or something?

The sight that met his eyes when he entered Spike’s room nearly made him cry.

Spike was strapped to the bed again, of course, his wrists and ankles wrapped in thick leather cuffs. Another wide belt was tight across his scarred chest. The bastards hadn’t bothered with a gown or sheet, and Spike was completely naked. A catheter had been inserted in his penis. Fresh bruises bloomed purple and yellow on his face and arms. He was staring blankly at the ceiling.

“Spike?” Xander whispered, walking slowly to the bedside.

“Xander,” he replied, his voice harsh and cracked, as if he’d screamed for a long time.

Xander had brought his lunch tray. He placed in on the table and held the cup of water near Spike’s face, inserting the straw between his lips so he could drink.

“Ta, Xan,” Spike said when he’d drained the cup.

Xander sat at his side. “Oh, Spike. Jesus.”

Spike said nothing.

“Wanna tell me what happened?”

Spike stared at the ceiling some more. “Went nuts, didn’t I? Tried to off that bloke.”

“Why?”

Spike snorted. “Told you. ‘M insane.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Spike looked at Xander, then, his eyes piercing. “Look, Harris. You’re doing yourself no good. Leave me be. Go rescue stray kittens.”

Xander responded by moving his chair closer to the bed, resting his hand gently on Spike’s bicep. “Tell me.”

When Spike still didn’t say anything, he rubbed lightly, soothingly. It wasn’t sexual. He just wanted Spike to know someone cared. He cared.

Finally, Spike said, “Wanker was leading Paulie off to a quiet room. Wasn’t the first time, either.”

Paulie was another patient. He was in his early twenties, with the face of a cherub and the mind of a young child. He spent his days smiling beatifically, trying to please everyone. The thought of McConnell trying to abuse him was completely plausible. It made Xander’s stomach churn.

“What did you do, Spike?”

“I followed them. Walked in just as the tosser was pulling down the boy’s trousers.”

“Christ.”

“He came at me, I fought back. Nearly had him throttled when the cavalry burst in and dragged me off him.”

“And nobody believed your story?”

“Ah, pet, nobody even asked. He told them the nutter went for him, and here I am.”

Fuck. And Paulie was no good as a witness—he could barely string a coherent sentence together in the best of circumstances. Plus, if questioned, he’d just tell his interrogators whatever he thought they wanted to hear.

“Why didn’t you just tell one of the other technicians or a nurse? Why did you have to intervene?”

“Nobody listens to the patients, Xan. Nobody except you. By the time I’d convinced someone to check in on them, McConnell would have already had his fun with the boy.”

“I’ll tell them what happened!”

Spike’s eyes widened. “No! They won’t believe you. You weren’t even there, pet. You’ll just get yourself sacked and then I’ll have nobody….” He didn’t finish his sentence.

Xander hadn’t stopped his slow stroking of Spike’s arm. “But you, Spike, you—“

“Look. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I never had the patience to follow a scheme through for long, always had trouble with my temper. Least this way Paulie got off okay, and now maybe you’ll find a way to keep McConnell away from him, yeah?”

Goddamnit. Xander had to choke back a sob. “But…but the doctor, he wants—“

“I know what he wants. I expect he’ll get it, too.” Spike laughed. “Won’t be the first time someone’s dug around in my cranium. ‘Course, this go I’ll have no vamp healing to draw on.”

“Shit, Spike, they remove a part of the brain! It’ll—“

“Maybe it’ll make things easier on me. Maybe I won’t mind being locked up anymore. Maybe…. Fuck, Xander. I don’t want this. But there’s no way round it, is there? So just…. Can we just not talk about it? Please?”

Xander looked at the pale, naked form bound to the bed. Stripped not only of clothes, but of freedom, of dignity. Of a future. Xander buried his head in his hands. They were silent for what seemed like hours, and then Spike whispered, “Xan? Could you read to me?”

So Xander picked up the paperback that was at Spike’s bedside. Agatha Christie, of all things. He began reading, but afterward he didn’t remember a single word that passed his lips.

His mind was miles away.

 

Xander wheeled the gurney down the quiet corridor.

Suddenly, Hernandez popped out of a door. “Harris! What are you doing?”

“Dr. Tarduno wants him over in the surgical unit.”

Hernandez scowled at the patient, who was strapped into a straitjacket and staring blankly upwards. “The procedure’s not until tomorrow, Harris.”

“I know. I guess they have some prep work to do. They’re being careful—it’s not like they do these every day, you know?”

Hernandez shrugged. “Okay. Whatever. You need some help?”

“Nah. I’ll be back in a few, all right?”

Hernandez nodded and Xander continued down the hallway.

When they got to the double set of locked doors, he waved and smiled at Flores, the security officer on duty. Flores waved back and opened the doors.

Outside was another corridor. To the left was the honor wing, where the patients who could be trusted not to run off were kept. Some of them even had jobs outside. A special bus picked them up every morning and took them to their restaurants and workshops, then it dropped them off again in the evening.

To the right was an enclosed breezeway that led to the adjacent building. That’s where the surgical unit was. It catered not only to the mental patients, but also to others who needed medical treatment under conditions of precaution, mostly jail and prison inmates.

Xander turned to the left.

Just before the entrance to the honor wing was an unmarked door. It was usually locked, but today the knob turned easily under Xander’s hand. He’d scrounged a key before his shift began.

Xander had no idea what the room was intended for nearly eighty years ago, when the facility was built. For ages, though, it had been used for storing odd things that didn’t seem to go anywhere else. Old computers. Tattered linens. Outdated medical equipment that nobody had bothered to throw out.

He wheeled the gurney into the small room and shut the door behind him.

The patient looked around him, confused. “What the bloody hell?”

Xander smiled and started quickly unbuckling the straps that held Spike to the gurney.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Shh. Someone might walk by.”

Xander pushed Spike into a sitting position and unfastened the straitjacket. Spike was still sputtering as Xander pulled the thing off his head. Then Xander reached for the shelf behind him and drew forward a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt.

“Here,” he said quietly. “Put these on. Quick!”

When Spike didn’t move, Xander pulled the shirt over his head himself. Spike managed to get his arms in correctly, then he slid off the gurney, shucked his pajama pants, and pulled on the jeans. Xander handed him a pair of white and black Nikes, too. Spike snorted a little at them—apparently they weren’t his choice of footwear—but slipped them on.

As soon as Spike was dressed, Xander yanked him out the door and into the hallway again. They headed for the doors to the honor wing. They were locked, too, but there was no security detail here. Xander pulled the key from his pocket and let them inside.

There was controlled chaos inside. Patients dressed in street clothes were heading in various directions—some to classrooms and recreation rooms inside the building, some to the bus that was waiting outside. Nobody paid any attention to the slightly built man with the curls or the technician in scrubs as they threaded their way through the crowds.

The front door was wide open.

Xander rested his hand on Spike’s shoulders and guided him out the door, outside. They went past the bus and into the parking lot. They turned the corner of the building and there was Xander’s elderly Toyota. He unlocked it and gestured Spike into the passenger seat.

And then they drove away.

They’d gone several blocks before Spike turned and looked at Xander. “You’re going to lose your job.”

“Fuck the job.”

“You could go to jail.”

“Not if they don’t catch me.”

“Bloody hell, Xan! Are you prepared to give up everything?”

“Give up what, Spike? What have I got to give up?”

Spike said nothing as Xander turned a corner and merged onto the freeway.

“Xander, are you willing to live as a fugitive?”

Xander laughed at that. “I don’t think tracking me down is going to be anyone’s first priority.”

“Where will you go?”

“I have no fucking idea.” He laughed again. “And it feels really fucking good!”

Xander saw out of the corner of his eye as a smile slowly spread over Spike’s face, lighting it like a halogen bulb. “You planning on having a partner in crime?”

“If you’ll have me, Spike.” He sped past a semi full of chickens in cages. “I’ve never been to Europe. Think you’d like to play tour guide?”

Impossibly, Spike’s smile turned up another notch. “Might do, pet.”

Then Spike curled his tongue behind his teeth. “Xander?” he said.

“Yeah?”

“How long until the bloody meds wear off?”

He rested his hand on Xander’s knee.

Xander smiled back and pressed the accelerator to the floor.

 

_\---Fin---_


End file.
